Eva Marie Saint, the actress best known for her roles in 'North by Northwest' and 'On the Waterfront' has discussed her life and career on an upcoming interview for TCM.

Eva Marie Saint's upcoming appearance on TCM on Monday night (31st March) promises to restore our faith in Hollywood. The actress, who will celebrate her 90th birthday in July, has sat down with presenter Robert Osborne in a TCM special which will include an interview about her life and career and three of her best known films.

Eva Saint Marie discussed her former colleagues in the TCM interview.

On the Waterfront, for which Saint received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and starred opposite Marlon Brandon, will kick off the night's festivities at 9pm. Another two of her films, Raintree County (in which she played opposite Montgomery Cliff and Elizabeth Taylor) and North by Northwest (also starring Cary Grant and directed by Alfred Hitchcock) will conclude the evening of celebration.

James Bond fans across the globe are celebrating 007's 50th anniversary today (October 5, 2012), though it's worth remembering that the quintessentially British franchise could have been a very American affair, had Bond producer Albert Broccoli had his way.

As The Guardian's Amanda Holpuch writes, Hollywood icon Cary Grant - best known for 'North by Northwest' - was urged by the producer (also his close friend and best man) to take the role. Despite his English heritage, it's unlikely that British audiences would have taken to Grant as Bond and the role eventually went to the Scotsman Sean Connery, who played the role with aplomb. Bond producers have since chosen Australian, English, Welsh and Irish actors to fill the role, though we shouldn't rule out an American slipping into the tuxedo in the near future. Will Smith had reportedly been close to the role before Daniel Craig took it on, and the heavy American-accented Christian Bale was also tipped to play 007. Australian star Sam Worthington is currently the bookies favourite to land the part after Craig hangs up his shiny black shoes, though it's likely that Michael Fassbender will be a key target for Bond producers. The 'Shame' star was born in German, grew up in the Republic of Ireland and now lives in London.

Anyway, before we start speculating on Craig's replacement, the actor stars in Sam Mendes' 'Skyfall' which hits cinemas on November 9, 2012.

It just doesn't get any more stylish than this. A high point in Hollywood's golden era, Notorious is a convergence of talent. Hitchcock is most "notorious" for psycho-thrillers (i.e. Rear Window, Dial M for Murder, Psycho) but the trademark mind-messing is restrained here, though not completely absent (there is an evil Nazi mother-in-law). Like Hitchcock's later espionage masterpiece North By Northwest, Notorious is sophisticated and entertaining. Uncoincidentally, Cary Grant is front and center in both films.

In Notorious, Grant plays a federal agent, looking for Nazis, who goes to Rio to protect Ingrid Bergman, who is married to a Nazi spy (Claude Rains) and is betraying him. Of course, Grant actually plays the suave, blasé, seemingly ordinary, seemingly heartless character he plays in all other films. Bergman is brilliant as the complex heroine.

The good thing about being an international playboy who looks and sounds like Cary Grant (well, one of the good things) is that there isn't much you have to do to pay for your fabulous jet-set lifestyle, except marry the occasional filthy-rich heiress (who's hardly bad-looking herself, so that doesn't hurt). So we shouldn't feel too bad for scandal-sheet regular Nickie Ferrante (Grant) when we're introduced to him at the start of the glossy, late-studio-period romance An Affair to Remember, at which point he's leaving behind his French lover, and presumably many years of others like her, in the interest of future security. Nickie's on an ocean liner steaming back to the U.S. to marry the heiress whose financial largesse will keep him in tuxedos and pink champagne for a good many years to come, when he runs into the woman he's fated to fall in love with, Terry McKay (Deborah Kerr), also no slouch in the looks department. But even after the fateful meet cute -- a nicely-framed bit with a cigarette case and some snappy quips -- and all the emotional and moral confusion it causes, there's little reason to feel bad for the guy.

Whether or not one should feel concern for Nickie's state of mind is important here, because director and co-writer Leo McCarey seems to have much more on his mind here than a simple romantic soufflé. The first half of the film takes place almost entirely on the ocean liner, and it's here that the film is at its best. Although both Nickie and Terry have significant others waiting for them on the pier in New York, they can't stop from engaging in some sharp romantic badinage, setting the tongues wagging among their entertainment-starved shipmates. The first sign that the film is moving into different territory, though, is when Nickie goes ashore in France to visit his grandmother and brings Terry along. It's a lengthy and overplayed sequence at a sleepy villa in which Terry, who had previously felt impervious to Nickie's attempts at pitching woo, gets a window into his soul via the grandmother and so falls for him. McCarey also introduces an overtly religious theme here (having Terry and Nickie pray briefly in the chapel) that will come back later in an even more heavy-handed fashion.

Hit-and-miss Hepburn-Grant production, released the same year as Bringing Up Baby but to a considerably less receptive public. That's because many of the jokes in Holiday fall flat, and while Grant has his characteristic grace and charm, the story he's put into with Hepburn (more earnestly grating here than director George Cukor should have allowed) is on the tepid side (involving a love triangle with Grant and two rich sisters). It all comes off as very stagey (it's based on a play) and not very funny at all. Safely skippable unless you're a big fan of the leads.

Mae West's most famous line appears in She Done Him Wrong, where you can finally discover that she's been being misquoted now for 73 years. Poor gal. Did you know she wrote the bulk of the films she appeared in? Who knew under the sneer and the sass there was an author? As for the story here, adapted from her play Diamond Lil, it's pretty much a bust: Nightclub owner Lady Lou (West) is semi-stalked by an old boyfriend who's been in the pokey for a spell. It's all over in about an hour, which serves mainly as a platform for West to crack wise at every boy in the room, including Cary Grant, the recipient of her signature line.

Marlon Brando's new biography paints 'The Godfather' actor in a new light, as it reveals how he slept his way around Hollywood. The biography also claims that he slept with some of his male directors and co-stars. The biography, 'Brandon Unzipped', by Darwin Porter claims that the bisexual Academy Award winner engaged in a sexual relationship with James Dean, Cary Grant, Montgomery Clift and Sir John Gielgud.

In the book, Porter says: "James Dean was one of Brando's most lasting yet troubled gay relationships. They had a relationship for a number of years but it was always turbulent. At one point they had a big stand-up fight at a party in Santa Monica, California, witnessed by dozens of people. His affair with Montgomery Clift was a long and enduring relationship."

The troubles that underlied this production show in the end, with a quirky and vaguely unsatisfying tale of a bishop (David Niven, not very compelling) who receives a guardian angel (Cary Grant, not very angelic) to help him sort out his life, Wonderful Life style. Still, nostalgia for the prior year's feel-goodie probably propelled Bishop's Wife to five Oscar nominations (it won for best sound), though its feel-good sentiment ends up drowning the film in saccharine.

Hit-and-miss Hepburn-Grant production, released the same year as Bringing Up Baby but to a considerably less receptive public. That's because many of the jokes in Holiday fall flat, and while Grant has his characteristic grace and charm, the story he's put into with Hepburn (more earnestly grating here than director George Cukor should have allowed) is on the tepid side (involving a love triangle with Grant and two rich sisters). It all comes off as very stagey (it's based on a play) and not very funny at all. Safely skippable unless you're a big fan of the leads.

Pleasantly light comedy has Cary Grant and Tony Curtis on a pink WWII-era submarine with five women who tend to screw everything up. How the sub gets pink and how the chicks get aboard is all the fun. Hilarious for its oh-so-taboo treatment of things like underwear. Watch for Gavin The Love Boat MacLeod in a small role.

It just doesn't get any more stylish than this. A high point in Hollywood's golden era, Notorious is a convergence of talent. Hitchcock is most "notorious" for psycho-thrillers (i.e. Rear Window, Dial M for Murder, Psycho) but the trademark mind-messing is restrained here, though not completely absent (there is an evil Nazi mother-in-law). Like Hitchcock's later espionage masterpiece North By Northwest, Notorious is sophisticated and entertaining. Uncoincidentally, Cary Grant is front and center in both films.

In Notorious, Grant plays a federal agent, looking for Nazis, who goes to Rio to protect Ingrid Bergman, who is married to a Nazi spy (Claude Rains) and is betraying him. Of course, Grant actually plays the suave, blasé, seemingly ordinary, seemingly heartless character he plays in all other films. Bergman is brilliant as the complex heroine.

It was with slight disappointment and definite surprise that I found, after years of intending to see it, Hitchcock's North by Northwest coming in just under the top tier of his films. Watching Cary Grant hustle through a cross-country wrongly-accused thriller isn't a bore, of course, but I felt the curious sensation of reacting to the film through a series of comparisons, trying to figure out where it fits on the Hitchcock scale: It's not as disturbing as Psycho, not as suspenseful as Rear Window, not as mind-boggling as Vertigo. Then again, Cary Grant's Roger Thornhill (who has the misfortune to share his name with a made-up spy) is an ad exec who goes on the lamb with improvised gusto, even picking up a mystery woman as he hides on a cross-country train -- so it is, at least, a lot manlier than To Catch a Thief.

It's a lot more than that, too. I don't mean to speak ill of the film -- in fact, North by Northwest is a epitome of craft and style. When a critic wistfully refers to a movie like The Fugitive or The Bourne Identity as "good old-fashioned entertainment," there's a good chance that this is the movie they recall. It has Cold War intrigue without gadgets or jargon; it has romance that blends in with that intrigue, rather than jogging alongside it.

No self-respecting film snob would speak ill of George Cukor's classic romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story, with its three major stars (plus the overlooked Ruth Hussey), rat-a-tat dialogue, hairpin plotting, and delightful humor. And so it's my turn -- what have I got to say for myself?

Not much that hasn't already been said. I fall in line with the conventional wisdom that Philadelphia is one of the smartest comedies you'll find. At the film's opening, C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant) and Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn) are seen in the midst of their breakup. Fast-forward a few years and Tracy's engaged again, and Dexter shows up with two Spy magazine reporters (James Stewart and Hussey), determined to throw a wrench into things.

By the time Cary Grant took on the role of Jim Blandings, the hapless hero of this would-be screwball comedy about the perils of home ownership, he no longer had to prove himself as a great comic actor. His charm-school looks and exacting sense of timing propelled three of the finest comedies from Hollywood's golden age -- Bringing Up Baby (1938), His Girl Friday (1940), and The Philadelphia Story (1940) -- but here he doesn't seem particularly compelled to top himself. The script doesn't light much of a fire under him either. What makes those three earlier movies so enduring is their speed -- the way the jokes keep coming, and the way Grant and his cohorts keep knocking them out of the park -- and Dream House is built out of much weaker material.

Grant plays Blandings, a Manhattan advertising executive who lives in a too-small apartment with his wife Muriel (Myrna Loy), their two children, and a maid. After a clunky opening sequence that oversells just how tightly packed everybody is, the Blandings go house-hunting in Connecticut, where they fall for a large house on an estate of rolling hills. They've rushed into things, though: the broker mischaracterized the size of the property and the state of the home, which is beyond repair and needs to be torn down. The idea of the Blandings setting off to build a brand-new house initially seems like solid comic fodder, but there really aren't too many jokes to tell within the setup - most revolve around the ever-escalating construction tab, and shots of Grant making outraged noises and widening his eyes get old fast. Jim's lawyer friend Bill Cole (Melvyn Douglas) is a decent straight man, but he's also hooked into a go-nowhere infidelity subplot that drags down an already sluggish film.